


Pulls apart

by novarathanis



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Canon Compliant, Canonical Character Death, Gen, M/M, Messing with canon details a bit, Nonlinear Story-Telling, Post-Canon, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Therapy
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-03-29
Updated: 2020-04-14
Packaged: 2021-03-01 03:21:04
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 18,357
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23378287
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/novarathanis/pseuds/novarathanis
Summary: After the war, Keith goes to therapy and reconnects with Shiro. They have a difficult time putting things behind them."Keith watches them dance. His grasp on his own sense of self-preservation had up to this point beentenuous at best, and now it slips through his fingers like so much sand.He remembers before. Can’t help it, as a matter of fact. He wants Shiro to be happy. He wants to behappy.He watches them dance, and he takes another swig of something vile."
Relationships: Allura/Lance (Voltron), Keith & Lance (Voltron), Keith & Pidge | Katie Holt, Keith/Shiro (Voltron)
Comments: 5
Kudos: 24





	1. Golden boy

**Author's Note:**

> I have about 30k written already; I'll try to update about every week or so. It won't be very long, maybe around 5/6 chapters.

_Now_

* * *

Nowadays when he’s awake too long, there comes a point where he enters a fugue state accompanied by blissful unawareness of his own surroundings.

Maybe not blissful, he corrects, but definitely empty. Void. He spends nearly all of his time awake, and that in and of itself doesn’t bother him much. He can’t help being stuck in the mindset that this is a good thing. It’s the kind of single-mindedness he’s used to, that made him successful, even the object of envy. But Keith isn’t dense. The same well-formed habits from his childhood and early adolescence have become maladaptive, according to Kolivan.

As for Keith, he’s ambivalent about the whole thing.

He feels a little numb. He goes to use the bathroom and catches a glimpse of himself in the mirror. He looks pallid and tired.

He uses the opportunity to reflect in a more metaphorical sense, though it is taken with some lingering resentment. It’s his first time off in ages, but there is nothing he wants to do and nowhere he wants to go. Not entirely true: he wants to be off this planet and out in the stars, where things make marginally more sense. Out there he has a role to play, shoes to fill that are his own. Down here—there isn’t _nothing_ , quite the contrary. The whole place is full of things he doesn’t want to face. There is something heavy and dense in the room that permeates the whole apartment, clogging his throat. Staring at his reflection for too long fills him with a cloying sense of urgency, but for what, he can’t articulate.

He needs to get it out.

He pisses, leaves his jeans unbuttoned and goes back to his room. Fumbling around in his sheets, he tries to scrape up what little personal encouragement he can find and finally locates it tucked away in a crusty fold, battery mercifully not drained.

He picks up the phone.

She answers on the second ring. “Good morning, sunshine. Long night? Back on Earth, I see.”

“It’s three-thirty.”

He should have cleared his throat before speaking. Pidge beats him to the punch. “And you sound like you haven’t gotten a good night’s sleep since your last gestation period. So maybe cut it with the attitude.”

He pushes his brow inward with one finger. He can already feel a headache coming on. “How are the others?”

A pause. “They’re doing fine—we’re doing fine.”

“That’s good.”

“We miss you, though.”

Keith hums. It’s partly contemplative, mostly to show he’s hearing her.

“…How is it with you? You don’t usually contact us first.”

He sighs, knowing she already knows the answer she’s going to get. “It’s pretty shit, honestly.”

“So it seems.”

The line goes silent—for the most part, anyway. He can still hear her shallow breathing on the other end, and if he listens closely, he can almost make out the phantom sounds of someone else’s breathing on her side. It’s likely one of the others—maybe Hunk or Lance. Maybe even Matt; the two of them have it made, a real dynamic sibling duo. They’ve been working on projects together the past few months from what he’d heard through the grapevine before being shipped back home. Pidge and Hunk have told him multiple times on their own, the former sending pings and the latter what amounts to electronic postcards complete with homebrewed recipes. Now, if someone asked him what any of it was about, Keith wouldn’t be able to tell them. What he could tell them is that they never seem to get tired of each other. Sometimes he envies that kind of familial closeness. Covets it, even. He thought he’d had it at one time, had even thought it was something more special.

Keith questions why he bothered calling in the first place, whether it stems from fear or an honest desire for reconnection. He remembers the last time he’d seen their faces, at least in person. He doesn’t want the last time to be _the_ last. It won’t help him sleep at night, but the last few months have taught him that nothing that hasn’t come out of a doctor’s office will.

His hands are shaking.

“Keith…why did you call?” Pidge asks quietly. “Don’t get me wrong, all of us want to talk to you, but things have been…tense. At least when you come up in conversation.”

“That sounds about right.”

“Then why?”

He bites his lip. “…”

“…If you ever need anyone to talk to, you know I’m—we’re—always willing to listen. But with the way things were left last time, I think—”

“Please don’t say it,” he says, pinching his brow. “I don’t want to hear—”

“—you need help.”

“I’m helping myself.”

“Are you? Are you _really_? Because the last time we checked you were sent back here for mandatory time off. It’s been, like, a week, and none of us have seen or heard from you since then, no one’s answered the door to your apartment—which you’re getting rent-free, by the way—and all of us were seriously starting to consider busting down the stupid door.”

“…I’m sorry.” He begins to pace, dragging his feet along the shag carpet. “I’m sorry.”

“You should be,” she agrees, “but none of us blame you. We just want to make sure you’re okay.”

“I know.”

“You can get help, you know—you’re ex-military, so there’s free counseling if you think you need it.”

Keith thinks he’d rather choke, but quickly writes it off as overdramatic. “I don’t—”

“Scratch that. You _definitely_ need it. Honestly, we all do. One of my mom’s friends is a therapist, there’s an office not too far from the garrison. She’s a military specialist. Here’s the number: eight-five-three…”

He doesn’t write it down, but only because he doesn’t need to. The numbers escape from the receiver, mocking spectres floating in circles around his head. “Thanks,” he mutters, ungrateful.

“I mean it,” she says. “If you don’t call, I’ll know about it. And so will everyone else.”

Even though her acquiring that inside knowledge is most certainly illegal in some fashion, he simply says, “I don’t doubt it.”

“Seriously. We’ll bust in there, paladin-style.”

He cracks a smile, even though he feels like he’s about to be sick. “I know you will.”

“Good. We’ll see you soon, won’t we?”

“Yeah. Of course.”

“Good,” she repeats. “Take care of yourself, all right?”

He swallows. There’s nothing left for either of them to say. Everything else that’s blocked him up isn’t meant for her, and they both know it.

“I only have one gestation period.”

“What?”

“A gestation period. Each person only gets one.”

“…Yeah,” she says, the eye roll implicit in her tone, “before you’re born. Or maybe you’re different, actually—I couldn’t say.”

With barely a muttered goodbye, Keith hangs up.

God, he’s tired. He isn’t thinking straight. He hasn’t been for a while. The next time he decides it sounds like a good idea to ask for advice, he’ll first consider doing something about that blackish mold that’s currently sprouting arms and legs in the corner of his bedroom carpet, just to make sure the toxicity has left at least some of his brain cells intact. Then, in lieu of enough money to either pay someone to come take care of the health hazard or to pay the people who work thankless jobs at the leasing office to give enough of a damn to do it themselves, he’ll sing a tone-deaf version of _Take On Me_ while curled mournfully on the shower floor, hot water on full blast, staring with similar distaste at the blooming dark patches on the bathroom ceiling. At least housing for military personnel is subsidized.

He picks up the phone.

* * *

_Before_

* * *

Shortly after they set out on their journey, Keith begins to feel like something about his relationship with Shiro has changed. It isn’t obvious at first—he’s used to things being one-sided, after all, so the shift doesn’t immediately register. Initially he chalks it up to time and distance. So much had happened while he was away—and he doesn’t expect Shiro to be _cold_ , necessarily, though the time he spent locked in a Galran cell or thrown into a combat arena must have hardened him.

As time passes it becomes obvious that it has, in very tangible ways. It’s easy to pretend, but hard not to notice the small but significant tells that single him out. He holds himself stiffer, head held high but eyes aimed low. He is more serious and more distant in almost all respects. In all ways but one.

There are trivial things that catch Keith’s attention, obviously, like a firm hand—never the Galra tech one—resting on his shoulder for too long; a light-fingered grip on his forearm when he sits down at the table to eat, angled so that no one else will notice; there are carefully orchestrated glances from across the room and protracted gazes through castle windows. Actions he mindlessly reciprocates, because he reasons that he should take what he can get. He would feel pathetic if he didn’t have the comfort of deniability.

Shiro speaks differently when it’s just the two of them, as well. He’s more direct, less soft and scripted. He talks to Keith like an equal, though they are arguably less so than even before. There is no more posturing, not for him. The days where he could pretend to be bigger, older, and wiser—they aren’t _gone_ , but they no longer have the same charismatic charm, and none of the innocence. Time has done a number on both of them—Keith is a washout, and Shiro is burnt out. He gets the sense that neither of them can or want to pretend anymore.

The atmosphere is occasionally lighter, when the pilots have some time at the end of the day to sit together in the kitchen lounge. It’s during one of these moments of pure domestic chaos, when Lance is waxing poetic about the things he misses from home and the many, many (“almost _too_ many”) forlorn girls he’d left behind, that Keith realizes something else.

“They loved me before, but after this there’ll be no stopping them. I’m telling you, guys—when we get back, they’ll be all over us. We’ll be _drowning_ , I tell you—drowning in—”

“Please don’t finish that sentence,” Pidge nearly begs. “Not all of us are motivated purely by personal gain.”

“It’s not motivation—it’s reward. Big difference.”

“Is there, though?” Hunk questions. “I mean, what’s the ‘reward’ even supposed to be for?”

“A job well done!”

“Yeah, I’m sure that’ll be one for the ages,” Hunk says, his voice dripping with melodramatic sarcasm. “I can almost read your grave marker now. ‘ _Here lies Lance. He got laid_.’”

Keith can’t help himself; he snorts. It’s not subtle.

“You think that’s funny, huh? Well at least I don’t have a _mullet_!”

Total silence reigns supreme for a few seconds. Then Shiro provides his one and only contribution to the conversation, “That was uncalled for, Lance.”

“Yeah. Not cool, man.”

“It _was_ kind of a low blow.”

“Seriously? Why is everyone ganging up on me?”

Keith grins; truthfully, those kinds of comments don’t bother him at all. He owns his hair and wears it proudly—but he also thanks his lucky stars every day that he’s one of the few people who can pull off the unkempt appearance.

“Fine,” Lance concedes, throwing his hands up in the air, “I—concur to the leader, or whatever. Just go ahead and keep playing favorites,” he says pointedly to Shiro.

The older man’s eyes widen for a fraction of a second, and flit over to Keith for easily half that. “I’m—not.”

“Hey, don’t defend yourself to me. I’m just the guy whose greatest achievement is getting laid maybe-possibly in the future if we don’t die horrifically before age twenty, apparently.”

The group moves on from there—or at least the other three do. Keith tries to actively engage (as much as usual, anyway) in the rest of the conversation but is preoccupied with watching Shiro in his periphery. He knows him well enough to know when he’s caught off guard—more than that, he knows enough to figure out that he isn’t just offended by Lance’s accusation.

He’s embarrassed by it.

* * *

_Now_

* * *

It’s nice to think there’s someone out there looking out for you, even if it’s not true.

This is the first thought that occurs to him when he finally manages to drag his sad sack to his first appointment. It doesn’t look like much from the outside. The inside is a different story: every precisely stacked magazine, off-white brushstroke, and cushy office chair in the waiting room is carefully tailored to provide comfort. A tabletop fountain sits in one of the corners, providing some ambient noise. To make you feel comfortable. Like you aren’t alone.

Keith is the only one here. The irony is not lost on him.

He takes a seat and peruses the reading material—mostly positive lifestyle magazines, with some self-help ( _hopefully the non-bullshit kind_ , he thinks with a grimace) and children’s books thrown in. There’s even an issue of a journal of psychiatry, the front page citing contributions from one of the field’s top trauma specialists. To cover all the bases, he figures. As he pokes around the stack, a familiar head of hair becomes visible on the bottom magazine’s cover photo. He hesitates for an instant before pushing the others aside.

It’s them, all right—all of them, arranged in proper showmanship form. Shiro is in the center. Him, he’s at center stage right, that telling tight-lipped smile on his face. He makes a point never to show his teeth to reporters or journalists. The others are all sporting characteristic grins, with arms linked or slung across shoulders. He remembers when this was taken, and it’s surreal to see the parts they played so thoroughly reinforced by this shop window display.

Keith no longer feels like sharing, but he also can’t bring himself to leave. He had made a promise, and he doesn’t feel like stepping out on this one.

“Keith?” He hurriedly places the magazine back in its place and stands up before the doctor comes into view: a middle-aged woman with auburn hair tied loosely at the nape. “You are Keith, correct?”

“Y-Yes. Yeah, I am.”

She smiles, and shakes his hand. “Great. It’s nice to meet you. My name is Irma. Would you like to come back? You can fill out the initial paperwork in my office if you like.”

“That sounds good.” He starts to follow her back down the hallway. “Uh, what should I call you?”

“Just Irma is fine. Or if that’s too casual for you, Dr. Rose. Or just Doctor. Doc is a bit too old-fashioned for me,” she laughs. “It’s up to you, really.”

She hands him the paperwork when they get to her office, and he proceeds to fill out his information with practiced boredom. When that’s done she takes the clipboard from him, and after reading it over for a minute or two they settle into their predetermined roles—him nestled in the chaise lounge, and her on her overstuffed armchair with a pad of paper and a pen. He can’t bring himself to recline quite yet.

“Before we get started, I have a few things I’d like to run by you first.”

“Go ahead.”

“It was mentioned on one of the privacy consent forms, but I wanted to inform you that we are currently undergoing postgraduate training at this facility, meaning that the recording and transcribing clause will be active and in effect throughout our sessions.”

He nods. “Okay. Got it.”

She gives him a once-over, but continues. “This just means that our sessions—not just yours, but those of all our clients—will be recorded and transcribed by one of our research assistants. All identifying information will be completely redacted, and the data anonymized. It’s purely for training purposes—nothing will be divulged to the public, and all audio recordings will be erased after the dialogue is transcribed into text on a password-protected computer and stored on a secure server. If you want us to erase anything at any point in time, all you have to do is contact me or one of my colleagues in this office.”

“…Is that it?”

“Yes, that’s it.”

“Sounds good.”

“I’m glad.” She crosses her legs, balancing the pad on her knee. “So, can we start off our first session by you telling me a little bit about why you decided to call in the other day? Or you can start by telling me what's on your mind.”

He starts from the beginning.

* * *

_Before_

* * *

“You’ve improved a lot since before I left.”

He stops abusing the dummy with his sword and turns around, pausing the program. Shiro grins at him, looking sheepish, as if he’d been caught doing something wrong. Keith grins back crookedly. “I’d hope so,” he says. “I had a lot of time to try to catch up, after all.” It serves as a grim reminder, and he immediately wishes he could take it back. “Uh, sorry.”

“Don’t be. It’s true.”

He thinks he should say it isn’t his fault, but the words won’t come, and remain unbidden in the back of his throat.

“You want to spar?”

He looks down at his own body, noting the sweat-soaked shirt clinging to his skin. “Right now?”

“No better time than the present. I was going to train anyway, and it’s better to do it with someone I’ve practiced with before. Besides, I want to see how much you’ve improved.” He smirks.

Keith shrugs and tries to act nonchalant, but now there’s something at stake: his pride. “As long as you’re okay with getting my grossness all over you, I don’t have any issue with it. But prepare to be impressed.”

Shiro chuckles, the sound instantly lifting his spirits, and averts his eyes for an instant. Then he steps forward. “All right. You asked for it. Begin sparring. Two-partner, no dummy. Any rules?”

“Any training goes. No aiming for the face or throat.”

“Just what I was thinking.”

Right before the match commences, he discards his sword. Shiro doesn’t give him space to catch his breath before rushing at him, right hand reaching across for his sleeve—

But it’s a feint. The arm dives under his armpit, his body twists and crouches, and Keith tumbles head over heels. The wind is knocked out of him as he lands hard on the mat, and he barely manages to springboard himself to his feet just as strong arms lock around his torso from behind.

Two can play at this game. He works his arms but doesn’t struggle blindly, looking for a weakness, a crack in the cover. Just as Shiro reaches up for the chokehold, he takes the opportunity to break the grip.

Panting, the two men face each other. Not even ten seconds have passed.

“Jeez,” Keith gasps, “you don’t mess around. But you did go a little easy on me there, didn’t you?”

“You asked for it.”

At that moment Keith remembers that while he had been training alone all those months after the mission, Shiro had been quite literally fighting for his life. He still doesn’t know all the details, though a deranged part of him wants to. He would never say it to Shiro’s face, but watching him across the mat, he thinks he can understand some small fraction of the desperation his opponents in the arena must have felt near the end, when their times came. He was the champion, after all. And as morbid as it sounds, Keith also feels admiration.

They go head-to-head again, but this time Keith lands the first hit, a solid punch to Shiro’s shoulder that slows him down, and he retaliates with an impressed grin and a mean right hook that clips his forearm when he raises it to block. “Nice,” Shiro comments, before stepping to the side. A massive chest overwhelms him, hands finding their grip as a leg kicks his own out from under him. He returns the hold.

They both go down.

He’s trapped underneath, but does his damnedest to keep Shiro from taking the dominant position. They spin on the mat, bodies circling in a perfectly synchronous dance, as Keith tries to gain some leverage. They go back and forth for a bit, but ultimately it’s Shiro whose raw strength and lack of fatigue wins out.

In the end Keith is pinned to the mat, with Shiro sitting on his stomach, palms clamped tightly around his biceps. He expects the metal to be cold on his bare skin, but it’s almost searing, and slick with sweat. Involuntary thoughts come to him, prompted in part by a bead of sweat that rolls down the column of the other man's throat.

_Fuck_ , he thinks. He shifts, suddenly uncomfortable.

“Good job,” Shiro offers, his hands alternately loosening and tightening again.

“Yeah,” he agrees, “you too.”

“You’ve gotten a lot stronger. And…”

He knows he should be asking to get up, and leave as soon as possible to maintain his dignity, but he can’t help but press him to continue. “And what?”

He swallows. “More mature.” He lets go of his arms and straightens up, suddenly unsure. “I mean, you look better, too. Last time we fought like this you were…”

He’s nervous, he realizes. Surprise must be evident from his expression, because Shiro tries to backtrack, his body shifting backward. “Never mind, I shouldn’t have said anything. It’s—”

“Wait—”

He feels it when he leans back against his groin. He must feel it, because he inexplicably stiffens. Keith grits his teeth and closes his eyes, humiliation coursing through him in cold, cold waves.

“Let me up,” he says quietly. “Please.”

He does.

Keith apologizes, and leaves without explanation.

Not for the last time, Shiro lets him go without saying anything.

* * *

_Now_

* * *

“I guess…my friends and colleagues have been worried about me lately.”

Dr. Rose nods. “Did any of them tell you why?”

“Yeah…they say I need help, or that I should take time off.”

She purses her lip and nods, jotting something down. “And do you think any of them are right in their assessment?”

“I guess so,” he shrugs. “I mean, I’m here, aren’t I?”

“Sometimes we do things we don’t necessarily want to, or even believe are unnecessary, because we think they’re expected of us—alternatively, we know they are. Did your friends or colleagues provide any reasons for saying you should get help?”

“Well for starters, I told her my life was shit.” He laughs, the sound humorless. “And apparently I hadn’t left the apartment in seven days.”

“…I see. Maybe you can elaborate on those?”

“Which one?”

“Let’s start with the second: you not leaving your apartment. Is there truth to that?”

“Not sure. It’s been a while since I’ve checked the calendar. But yeah, I guess it’s true. I’m on mandatory leave, so I can do anything I want. And I didn’t want to do anything. I just wanted some time alone, but…”

“…But?”

“I ended up calling her. I don’t know why. It’s not that we were never close, but there were others—and I just…didn’t know what else to do. I felt like I was going to lose my mind, or that I’d lost part of it already. Yeah, I think that’s true.”

“Sometimes being alone for long enough periods of time can make us feel that way. We’re naturally social, after all.”

He draws himself inwards, tucking his elbows between his legs. “I just feel like…I’ve lost everything important, you know? Which is an awful thing to say, since we did so much good. We’re still doing it. But it stopped being enough.” He leans down, clasping palms behind his head. “And I don’t know how to…admit that? It’s like…a betrayal. Or like I failed. So I thought it would be better to avoid talking about it. You probably think that’s cowardly.”

“On the contrary,” she says, just as she finishes jotting down something on her notepad. “I think you’re very brave.”

* * *

_Before_

* * *

They run into each other just as Keith is exiting the showers adjunct to the training floor. He’s never been more grateful for the fact that he’s already flushed red from the hot water and exercise; otherwise he would probably sink into the floor. Shiro is bigger and broader than he remembers from the garrison, which had been obvious when they fought (in more ways than one) and is even more obvious now with his chest and lower abdomen being sans clothing.

He sends him a curt nod. “Hey.”

“Hey.” Keith holds his breath, forgetting his own nakedness, and manages to keep his composure until he gets back to his room.

Then, and only then, does he beat one off to the thought of Shiro pinning him down to the bed, feeling guilty all the while.

It doesn’t happen quickly.

They start running into each other during training more and more, at first coinciding with Keith’s schedule, but soon bleeding into a more regular, personalized schedule for the both of them. Shiro initiates the explicit shift from casual encounter to rendezvous (“You’re here all the time anyway; Why don’t we just meet up at this time to spar?”), but he practically jumps at the chance. To Keith’s simultaneous relief and frustration, Shiro doesn’t mention what had happened the first time. He isn’t being paranoid, but Shiro is certainly being evasive.

It would be just like old times, if the atmosphere weren’t so charged. Whereas before he would have been glad just to have this kind of quality time, now he feels his hands shake and his palms start to sweat before they even get onto the mat—and it isn’t because he’s afraid of Shiro during training. He isn’t afraid at all.

He’s excited.

The juxtaposition between the feelings of his past—anxiety to impress—and those of the present—anticipation for a far less noble goal—would be funny if it weren’t so infuriating. It feels always just out of reach, like a boundary one of them needs to cross, but both refuse to take that final step. Shiro is not forward by nature, not on a personal level, but one thing he has always been is direct. He’s no less obvious now, at least in that regard. Keith sees the way he looks at him and returns the favor, tongue licking up the beads of sweat that collect in the narrow groove beneath his nose.

It doesn’t happen quickly.


	2. Hey you

_Now_

* * *

“You mentioned that you were ex-military.”

“Not ex—well, I guess, technically. My unit does humanitarian work now, for places that had previously been colonized, and I used to…well…”

She spreads her hand out, urging him to continue. “You used to…?”

“Well—you recognize me, don’t you?”

She smiles—a tiny, knowing smile. “It’s not my place to question someone’s identity. Do you think I should recognize you?”

“Give me a break,” he mutters, crossing his arms. “You’ve got a damn magazine with my face on it. And probably inside it, too. Don’t play dumb.”

“Would you prefer it if I didn’t?”

“…No, not really.”

“If it would help you feel more comfortable here, I can get rid of them.”

“That’s not the problem.”

* * *

_Before_

* * *

Keith stifles a yawn as he discards his gear on the changing room floor before heading into the showers. It had been a long, lonely session tonight; Shiro hadn’t shown up at the time he usually did. He’s embarrassed to admit that he had waited around for a good few minutes before realizing that the other man wasn’t coming. Practicing alone after that realization had left a bitter taste in his mouth.

He knows it’s childish, but he finds himself attempting to analyze whether something had happened between them the last time they spoke. As far as he could tell, nothing had been amiss. They’d spoken earlier that day, and Shiro had seemed fine—a little spacey, maybe, but who doesn’t get that way out here, once in a while? It should be perfectly forgivable, even normal, for him to pass on today. He probably isn’t feeling well. He knows how that goes.

Keith is still disappointed.

He goes into the shower and tries to relax underneath the warm water. He pushes down the offense and hopes that Shiro is okay. God knows he doesn’t get enough rest for all the pressure he’s under. None of them do. Keith is surprised he hasn’t turned to diamond yet. He knows being stuck out here for so long is taking an invisible toll on them all, and wonders if he can become astute enough to notice the changes happening if he pays enough attention. He considers that one day they’ll go back home to find that things have changed too much for them to readapt: people become ghosts if you leave them long enough—not the person themselves, but the person you remember them being. It’s the same with places, and memories too. The less you revisit them, the more that’s changed once you finally go back to take another look, and nothing is the same once you’ve left it the first time. Shiro’s year of absence had taught him that much, even before he’d found out he wasn’t really dead. Maybe Shiro’s begun to realize that on his own, now that the dust has had time to settle.

As for Keith, he wants to hold onto it for as long as he can.

It’s an ultimately futile train of thought, so he presses his head against the tile and tries to stifle his disappointment by cranking the heat up well past the temperature he can normally tolerate. Steam billows up from the ground in thick clouds. When he’s done, he shuts off the water and hurriedly grabs his towel, not bothering to wrap it around his waist before heading back in to get his clothes. Someone is already sitting there.

“Hey, Keith.”

“Jesus,” he gasps, hands reflexively flying down to cover his groin. It’s only Shiro, but noticing that doesn’t make his heart stop racing. “You scared the shit out of me.”

Shiro seems more amused at his misfortune than repentant. “I'm sorry,” he says, and at least the apology sounds genuine. He throws Keith's shorts at his face.

He stays ramrod straight, but catches them and hurriedly pulls them over his thin legs. “Apology accepted.” He feels self-conscious with the other man staring, even though he knows it’s nothing he hasn’t seen before. “What are you doing here? I thought you were a no-show.”

“So did I, but I thought I’d catch you when you were leaving.”

“I see.” He doesn’t. As far as he’s concerned, this problem has a non-trivial solution. “Well, you caught me.” It comes out the way he’d intended, yet somehow still makes him cringe internally. Plausible deniability has been the game for some time now, so this comes as a shock even to him—but his heart is racing already, his skin still moist from the shower, and he’s feeling acutely bold. He steps forward. “What are you going to do about it?”

He starts hitting the mental delete button when Shiro looks at him like he’s just said something ridiculous. It takes him a few seconds to realize he’s just crossed that invisible line, and now he has to decide whether to own it. He panics for a moment before regaining his footing. Keith isn’t a coward, and he shouldn’t be shy around Shiro: not with the things they've seen and been through, both at the Garrison and within their short time in the Castle of Lions. He knows he hasn’t been imagining the tension; this much he is certain of. But if Shiro wants to continue to pretend, then there is nothing he can do about it. He can’t force the issue.

He has to acknowledge it and move on. It's the mature thing to do.

“Never mind,” he mutters, reaching over and snatching his things from their place next to the other man’s lap. He shoves the rest of his clothes into the bag, only bothering to slip on his shoes. “Forget I said anything. I must have imagined it.”

“Keith,” Shiro says, his voice small. He refuses to hear the pity in it. He isn’t to be pitied. Not anymore.

“You don’t have to explain yourself. It’s fine.”

“It’s not that— _Keith_. Look, I’m sorry.” Shiro stands up. Keith always forgets how much taller he is compared to him. It’s a two-sided emotion. He looks to his right, avoidant, and then finally looks up; to his surprise, Shiro is staring down at him with weary affection. “You caught me off guard, is all. I just—can I kiss you?”

“Yeah.”

He does so, very matter-of-factly. It isn’t like Keith expects—which is to say, full of tongue and teeth, the way he’d been led to believe by the weeks leading up to this. Then again, those expectations had largely (entirely) been informed by his imagination, so he shouldn't be surprised. At first it's distinctly awkward, if endearing; Shiro cups his face with both hands, and Keith uses the offered biceps to steady himself as he pulls him in closer. He opens his mouth to introduce tongue, but Shiro hesitates and moves to the side, pressing a brief kiss to the corner of his mouth. He pulls away.

“Was that okay?”

Keith smacks his lips. “Uh, yeah. You know, very on-brand.”

“ ‘On brand’? What does that mean?”

“It’s—well, you know. Cute.”

Shiro simply stares. “I—what?”

“You know what? Ignore what I just said. Forget about it.”

“If you insist. Thanks for the compliment.” He looks down and entwines their hands. “At least, I think it was a compliment?”

“It was.” He clears his throat before blurting out, “Let’s go to your room.”

Keith kisses him again before they get inside, pulling him forward by the hips—Shiro goes easily, falling into him and through the automatic door while it’s still sliding open. He flops backward onto the narrow bed, pulling Shiro along; he chases after his mouth, and this time lets his tongue slip in when he parts his lips. The tiny bed is a tight fit, and the two of them scramble for space, but ultimately settle down with one of Shiro’s thighs nested between his legs, trading saliva.

Keith sighs when he goes for his neck with both mouth and teeth; he hadn’t known it was a weak spot before, but it figures. He’s had countless numbers of people grab him there, some when he was too small to fight back, though he tried—and then again when he was older, though this time the violence was sanctioned. He forgets about that now, and appreciates the feeling for what it is: an exchange of trust, if a subtle one. Shiro draws his hand away from his bare stomach, across his chest, and eventually lays it over the indent between Keith’s shoulder and collarbone, rubbing his fingers back and forth against the unscarred skin there.

“Soft,” he mutters, leaning back to resume making out.

It hurts to hear, but he tries to play it off. “Is that an insult?” he rebukes him, only a bit serious, the vibration from his voice causing his own to quiver slightly. He slides his hands up over his back, pulling the shirt with it. “Wanna take this off.”

“Okay.”

Both his shirt and his shorts are discarded—leaving him fully nude, while Shiro’s lower half is still fully clothed. That self-consciousness from earlier comes back in full force, but he quashes it, deepening the kiss until he can see Shiro’s other hand tightly clutching the headboard above them. He’s hard; they both are.

Shiro curses when he grinds against his leg. When he asks to touch him, Keith curses back, but manages to append a ‘yes’ to the end of it. His breath is set to quickening with long, firm strokes. When Shiro entwines cold metal fingers in his hair Keith lets his nails dig into his back.

“Is this good?” Shiro asks, sounding unsure.

It’s endearing. He nods breathlessly, aiming a sloppy kiss at his mouth. Shiro tries to return it, but he doesn’t let him, letting out a broken moan. He’s pent up, and it’s embarrassing, but he bends his legs at the knee and curls his toes, trying to keep himself tethered.

“Damn,” Shiro comments, pressing their foreheads together. “I’ve got you.”

Keith doesn’t see stars when he comes, but he does see Shiro looking down at him, eyes glazed over as he watches him sink his sweat-soaked head down into the pillow. He ejaculates all over both of their stomachs, groaning weakly at the overstimulation. He feels—young, inexplicably embarrassed, and bites his lip to calm his panting as he stares down at him. Shiro smiles dumbly, brushing damp hair off his forehead as he reaches down to kiss him again.

“That was...nice,” he says between kisses, “you’re beautiful.”

Saying ‘thanks’ seems inappropriate, so he flips the script instead. “So are you.” Shiro is holding him close, appearing reluctant to let go, but he manages to force his way out and reverse their positions. “Now it’s your turn.”

His eyes widen minutely when he realizes what Keith is positioning himself for. “Are you sure? You don't have to right this second, if you wanted to relax first.”

“Yeah, I'm sure.” He slides between the other man’s legs, bending down on his knees as he undoes his pants. Shiro watches him, gaze transfixed, as he sinks his mouth down and takes him in as far as he can; his eyes sting, and he closes them for a second, letting the soft but gratuitous moans waft into his ears. It isn’t enough to get him hard again (nothing will be for a while) but it’s close.

Shiro says his name, quiet but desperate, and Keith opens his eyes to see him biting his lip, but still staring at him. They make eye contact when he comes, and he wonders idly if it had been this intense from his perspective, just moments before—if he’d also looked like that, blissed out and dazed, shot out to space for a second before coming back down.

They settle down together, Keith nestled in the crook of Shiro’s much larger arm. “You’re amazing,” Shiro says, making eye contact with a small smile. It reminds him of what he sounded like when they used to stare out at the stars. Like he’s looking at something both unfathomable and prepossessing.

He grins, reciprocating. “You’re just saying that because I sucked your dick.”

“It’s still true.”

They laugh together, and then fall into a light doze. Before he falls asleep, he hears Shiro mumble into his hair.

“You know I care about you, right? More than I can say.”

High on the possibility that what he hears isn’t a dream, he can’t help but respond.

“Me, too.”

* * *

_Now_

* * *

At the end of one of his sessions he leaves feeling at once lighter and heavily weighed down, as if he’s gotten the paperweights out of his pockets but replaced them with sandbags hung over his shoulders. He passes someone else in the hallway but keeps his head down, silently moving aside to give him some room.

“Keith?”

He stops cold. He must be mistaken. He knows he should keep his eyes forward and continue walking. But he can’t—the most perverse, desperate part of him needs visual confirmation. He needs to _see_.

He turns around. Strike one.

In truth, he had already known there’s no mistaking that voice. He’s heard it too many times in his tragically short life.

“Shiro,” he says, stupidly. “What are you doing here?” He shouldn’t be talking to him; that’s strike two. He should disengage, and continue on with his day, which he already knows will mostly consist of sitting alone in his apartment, staring at the fucking wall. It’ll be a riot.

“I’m—here on official business,” Shiro stammers, faster than he’d expected. Honestly, he still looks baffled, as if he’s having a hard time coming to terms with the fact that Keith is even standing in front of him, much less on the same planet. He can relate. They must make quite a pair, two dumbstruck idiots standing in a hallway, both of them demonstrably not where they had said they would be the last time they spoke. Even the flies on the wall must be uncomfortable. “What about you?”

“You have your business. I have mine.” It’s childish of him, he’s aware, but he can’t help it—and that’s strike three. Antagonism seems to run in his veins. His casual date with the bedroom wall has just been upgraded to a romantic evening, which will culminate with him knocking his skull through the plaster. At this point he decides to cut his losses and walk away, but before he can take two steps Shiro reaches out a hand— _that_ one.

He flinches, and Shiro recoils. “Wait, please.” He sounds tired. “Don’t walk away—God, how long has it been? What, five months? Six?”

“I couldn’t say.”

His lip juts out in a comically serious pout, and Keith finds himself struggling to decide whether he wants to laugh or cry. “I’ve been wanting to talk to you.”

_Me too_. He doesn’t say it. He can’t say it. It would be antithetical to all the progress he’s been trying to make. He inhales deeply, and tries to keep it short, “I don’t think that would be a good idea.”

“Look, I know I—messed up. Really, really badly, in a lot of ways. I want to talk about it. I know you reserve the right to not want to listen to what I have to say, but I think it would be good for both of us.” He gives him a small smile. “Besides, it’s been a while. I’ve been wanting to catch up with you.”

As far as he knows, there is no such thing as a fourth strike, but if there had been, he would have definitely struck out. He can’t say no when he looks at him like that—with that hangdog expression, practically pleading with him to reconsider. “Fine,” he agrees wearily, his sensible half (or quarter) already regretting it. “Did you want to get coffee, or…?”

His grin is radiant, but tinged bittersweet. “Coffee’s good,” he whispers, “coffee’s great.”

* * *

Coffee _is_ great, Keith acknowledges as he slings another shot of espresso down his gullet. Throat now parched, he uses the normal mug of coffee to his left as a chaser.

Shiro looks on, his expression becoming increasingly concerned. “I didn’t know you were a caffeine addict. Is this a new development?”

“This might be a radical concept, but things do indeed change when you aren’t looking at them.”

Shiro's mouth twitches. “Do they.”

He puts the mug down, and licks his lips to get rid of the bitterness. “To get back to your actual question, the answer is that I’m not. I just haven’t slept properly in weeks and decided I probably need a pick-me-up if I’m going to get through this conversation without falling asleep.”

Shiro looks slightly pained. “I’m that boring?”

“In large enough doses, everyone’s boring.”

He chuckles. “While I mostly agree with the sentiment, I think I can cite one counterexample.”

“Who’s that?”

“You were never boring, you know.”

He rolls his eyes, since he knows Shiro is being unbearably sincere. It’s his _thing_. Just like it’s apparently _his_ thing to torment himself by going out on impromptu coffee excursions with the object of his inner conflict and—some other things, too. Masochistic tendencies are becoming ever higher on his list of indulgences. “How long did it take you to come up with that?”

“It was completely on-the-fly. No scripting here.”

“Really.”

“I wanted to have an honest conversation.”

Keith isn’t sure how flattery fits into his model of closure, but chases the accusation down with another gulp of coffee. His stomach churns unpleasantly. “All right, then. Let’s hear it.”

A short staring contest ensues. “Where should we start?”

He dumps another packet of sugar into the brown muck this racket of a diner calls coffee, without breaking eye contact. “Last time I checked, you asked me here. The ball’s in your court, now.”

“You suggested the coffee.”

“And you suggested I give you the time of day.”

“That seems a little unfair, given our last conversation.”

“I ended it on my terms. You wanted a chance to get your last word in. This is it.”

Shiro sighs, taking a sip of the espresso he’d ordered, much to Keith's disbelief. For as long as he’d known the man, he had never even seen him touch the strong stuff, or do so much as sniff in its general direction. As soon as the cup touches his lips he makes a face, mouth curling into a perfectly sculptured expression of disgust. “This—this is terrible.”

“That bad, huh?”

“Awful. How can you drink this?”

“I don’t taste it much. The weaker stuff calms it down.”

“Good Lord.” He puts the small cup aside. “You couldn’t pay me to finish it.”

“No worries. You’re the one paying them, after all.”

“Next round is regular decaf. I’m officially cutting you off.”

“If you say so,” he capitulates easily. “You’re still paying.”

“Don’t remind me.” Shiro puts his head in his hands, peaking up at him through splayed fingers. He looks away, determined not to sink in any deeper. “Listen,” Shiro begins, “I wanted to say, first of all…that I’m sorry for everything. You didn’t deserve it. I was stupid and selfish. As a leader, I did something unforgivable.”

Those are such pretty words. He’s wanted to hear them for so long that they no longer sound real to him. At his most disillusioned, he sees them for what they are. They’re just window-dressing, a façade of the worst kind—a smokescreen designed to attract forgiveness. At his most vulnerable, Keith wants to believe that they’re true. “Yeah,” he agrees, quietly.

“But I—I don’t want that to be the end of things. We’ve been through so, so much. I don’t want to call it quits over what I—what happened. I think…we both depended on each other too much. It wasn’t healthy. You were so young.” He folds his hands in his lap, while Keith tries to hide the way his fists clench under the table. “While you were gone, I think I came to realize that what we needed was time apart.”

It’s like a dagger to the heart. Pieces fall into place. Things begin to make a sudden, horrific amount of sense. And what’s worse is that Shiro isn’t even being honest about it. He knows his tells—frequent glances to the side, the hallmark of his deception ever since they were at the Garrison. “You’re lying.”

“No, I’m not.”

“It’s not the whole story.”

He’d noticed it before, but does so again: exhaustion really does seem to permeate Shiro's bones. He's completely drenched in it. It's like looking into an unpleasant mirror. “What do you want from me, then? What would it take to make you accept what I’m saying?”

Keith slams his palms underneath the table—not hard enough to attract attention, but enough to get his point across, and for his palms to sting in protest. “You act like it doesn’t matter. Like it doesn’t affect you. You won’t even say what it was.”

“We’re in public.”

He shakes his head. “It’s not that. Not even when we were alone. Not even after we—you could never admit it. You’re ashamed.”

Shiro's eyes widen, and he knows he’s struck gold in the worst way possible. “I never—”

“You’re ashamed of me. You always have been. That’s why.” He leans back in his chair; all the energy has seeped from his bones like tea in water. It leaks into the air around them, filling the space nearby their table with tension so thick the servers start to take the long way past.

“You could never admit it,” Keith whispers to himself just as much as to the man across from him. “That’s why you never said anything about him. Then you’d have to admit it. You were telling the truth back then, weren’t you? The day we fought—the real fight, before the Atlas.”

“No—no, that’s not it. I was out of my mind then, Keith. You, I could _never_ —”

More excuses, and he doesn’t stick around to hear the rest. It’ll just be more empty platitudes, devoid of meaning or honesty. They reverberate in his head, echoing in the droning tin can he calls his brain. He hears Shiro calling after him as he exits the diner, but tries to push it out of his mind. He hails a taxi and mechanically provides directions back to his apartment, eyeing Shiro's retreating form in the rearview mirror.

Keith reminds himself that he should be healing. He should be forgetting about it, keeping this whole situation locked firmly into the past so he can move on to a new chapter in his life, but now he questions whether he’s truly capable of doing so. He had tried before, and failed miserably. Why he'd thought therapy would work as a quick fix, he has no idea. He knows he's desperate. He wants to keep Shiro close to him, but he isn’t sure he’ll ever be able to let go of this resentment—not of Shiro, but of himself. He should have cut ties, disentangled himself from the situation in the hallway before he’d gotten a word in edgewise.

He should have, he should have, and he should have, but it’s too late. He’s got his claws back in.

* * *

_Before_

* * *

Something goes wrong.

He’s targeting a small, single-fighter Galra ship that by all rights should have taken the plunge minutes ago. It should be easy to knock down—so easy, in fact, that Keith almost misses the twin ship coming up from below, nearly allowing it to hit his blind spot. The Red Lion dodges the fire easily and allows him to dispatch the original enemy, but not before its partner’s wing clips the lion’s chin, sending him reeling for a few seconds from the uppercut. He curses, feeling a painful twinge in his neck that distills into a low burn.

“ _Let’s form Voltron_ ,” he hears Shiro’s voice in his ear, addressed to all of them. He wants to respond, but he’s getting knocked around in his seat, knowing it will leave a few bruises and mentally preparing himself for it.

What he isn’t mentally prepared for is suddenly not being able to breathe. On second thought, that assessment isn’t quite accurate—he’s taking in air but feels lightheaded, like he’s sucking oxygen through a thin straw or stuck in a room full of carbon dioxide. The air doesn’t flow as easily. Keith tries to draw in a deep breath and feels the gas fill his lungs, but he just gets woozier. He thinks he hears Shiro saying his name and manages to force his mind back to the present, to the weapons fire as he dodges in and around it instead of the desperate pull of his lungs, trying his best to take short, clipped breaths.

“ _Keith? Are you there? We need you. Please respond_.”

He sounds concerned. Panicked, almost, if he didn’t know better. He feels lighter as the seconds pass. He needs to tell him.

“Suit. Malfunction,” he pants into the receiver, trying to save as much air as possible. “See-oh-two...” He needs to tell him…

The line is laden with static, but he hears Shiro curse. Pidge interjects, yelling something about a blockage. Hunk and Lance both say something unintelligible, uncertain what’s going on.

It occurs to him then. Keith knows what he needs to do. There is air in the cockpit. He has to take the suit off. He tries the switch for the body, then for the head. They both ignore him—more than one malfunction, then. There’s a failsafe, in that he can remove the helmet manually, but he’s being fired upon from multiple directions, and he needs both hands.

He tries anyway, hoping his lion will save him. Right before he’s about to take it off he gets hit from behind, sending him careening forward, the force of his lion’s counterbalance causing intense whiplash.

“Shit,” he coughs. There’s no time to waste.

In the next few seconds he manages to dispatch his last few solitary targets. Pinpricks of black begin to dot the edges of his vision. He needs to tell him. If he doesn’t get the helmet off, he’s going to pass out and suffocate. He lets go of the controls.

_Please don’t get me killed_.

He speaks into the receiver one last time, switching the channel to a solitary line. He needs to tell him…

“I—”

* * *

He wakes up staring through glass.

He recognizes the pod immediately, as well as the faces staring through it, as the door slides open. Shiro stands in front, looking distraught. Coran gives him a thorough once-over as he helps him step out. “Well I’ll be the first to say, that was a one-in-a-million malfunction! How are you feeling?”

“Fine,” he replies, curt. “A little weak.”

“No scotomas, blind spots? Problems balancing? Lights too bright? Any weird smells or tastes I should know about?”

“…No?”

“Then in my professional opinion, I’d say there’s minimal brain damage,” Coran comments cheerfully.

Shiro blanches. “Minimal?”

“It’s a joke,” Keith says in a dour tone.

“Is it? I wouldn’t be too sure. Always with the brain damage, the lot of you. Anything and everything can kill you guys, but just as much will leave you enfeebled!”

“That’s quite enough,” Allura comments, stepping forward to pull Coran away. “You’re making them nervous. Keith, feel free to take the rest of the day off.”

“What about the rest of the fleet? What happened to them?” He glances around, adrenaline flowing through his veins. Everyone is accounted for, and he relaxes, but only slightly.

“It’s taken care of,” Allura dismisses, her tone reassuring. “You guys did great.”

“What happened?” he asks insistently. “I don’t remember.”

“You were unconscious?” Shiro asks. There’s an iron grip on his shoulder.

“Not the whole time—just part of it near the end. After I…” he trails off, remembering the words he’d chosen when he thought there was a chance they could be his last. “It doesn’t matter. I survived. Anyway, how did I get back?”

Shiro looks like he wants to argue, but Allura responds first. “Your ship took you back. We put you in the pod immediately; it’s only been about an hour or two, give or take,” she informs him.

He nods, satisfied. “All right. Thanks. But I don’t need any more rest.”

She looks prepared to argue the point, but this time Shiro beats her to it. “Out of the question. You’re going back to your room, and I’m making sure you get there.” His hand tightens as he starts to steer him away, and Lance whistles after them.

“Looks like someone’s in trouble!”

For once he has no doubts about Lance being correct. The trip is silent and awkward. He has an inexplicable urge to apologize, but stands firm when they get to his room. Even while they are waiting for the door to slide open, Shiro won’t let go of his shoulder. Once he is certain they’re alone Keith turns around with no semblance of a script in mind, just a vague notion to defend his actions—though he isn’t clear on what aspect of them needs defending—and immediately deflates. He feels guilty, and more than a little ashamed, when he notices the bags under Shiro’s eyes.

“Shiro?” He grabs his hand and interlocks their fingers. “…Are you okay?”

He returns the hold with a vice-like grip. “You could have died.”

“So could you. You almost did.” _Now we’re even_. He doesn’t say it. That would be too cruel.

“That was different. I signed up for that.”

“And what, exactly, did I sign up for? An intergalactic cruise? I’m not a kid anymore.”

Shiro isn’t looking at him. The wall behind his head must be interesting.

“I’m okay,” Keith insists. “Look at me. See me, right? In one piece.” He clasps both palms around Shiro’s much larger one. In return, Shiro cups Keith’s face with the Galra prosthetic, brushing a thumb across his cheek. The gesture is gentle, but his expression is pained.

“I’m sorry,” he mumbles.

Keith makes sure the door is locked behind them.

* * *

_Now_

* * *

“Would you say, to some extent, you felt he owed you something?”

“What—like, a reward?”

“If that’s how you want to phrase it. Personally, I would describe it more as a return on an emotional investment.”

He shakes his head. “I’m not sure I follow.”

“Think of it this way: the two of you spent a significant amount of time together, both as colleagues and close friends—and, from what you’re describing, something more. Which you were happy about. And from what you’ve told me, he had a lot on his plate to deal with at the time, internally. You may have found yourself trying to do too much emotional labor on his behalf.”

“That’s—that’s insane,” he argues. “I didn’t take care of his issues for him.”

“I’m not saying you did,” Dr. Rose concedes, “just that he was going through a very rough point in his life, and he might not have given you what you wanted at the time. When in high-stress situations, people might let their own negative feelings affect others around them, oftentimes inadvertently.”

“We all did that, though.” Keith finds himself getting defensive on Shiro's behalf. “We snapped at each other constantly. It wasn’t just him. He was better than everyone else at keeping it together. He was always the calm, levelheaded one out of all of us, even when I was too hotheaded to lead. He never took anything out on me. He kept things close to the chest, sure, but that was so he wouldn’t….” He makes a fist over his heart, clenching his shirt. “But there’s nothing wrong with that. He couldn’t be switched on emotionally all the time after what happened. What happened to him—you never get over things like that. It was my job to—to be there for him like he was for me when I was younger. If he’s miserable it’s because I failed him. I wasn't...”

“And how do you think he felt, during that time?”

“He was—he was miserable.”

“All the time?”

“…No, not all the time.”

* * *

It’s pouring outside when his appointment ends. Figures, since there hadn’t been a cloud in the sky two hours before. He settles down at the bus stop a block down the street, swiping as much rainwater off the seat as he can. He pulls up his hood and sits tight, letting the water flow over him and wet the tips of the hair that falls in his eyes. He doesn’t feel the cold.

His ears perk up when the thrum of the raindrops is interrupted by an engine’s purr. Glancing up, he sees a silver car pull over by the stop and knows whom it is before the window rolls down.

“You’re waiting for the bus?”

He puts his hands in his pockets. “Yeah.”

“It’s pretty cold outside, you know.”

“I couldn’t tell.”

“You’re going to get sick,” Shiro says authoritatively. “I’ll give you a ride home.”

He keeps his head down and bites his lip. “What are you, my father?”

“Call it a favor from a friend. But if that doesn’t work, I can try making an appeal to seniority or authority or something like that. So get in the car.” His voice softens. “Please.”

It’s at this precise moment, while he’s getting soaked to the bone and staring down Shiro's car as if it had sprayed him with gutter water, that Keith takes the time to examine his lot in life. He looks down his feet and sees the torrent clogging the drain with wet dirt and other people’s trash. He looks forward in time and sees himself sitting alone at his kitchen table, heating up some instant noodles (microwaved, not boiled), and retiring to his room for the night, and he thinks _it couldn’t hurt if I get there a bit faster_.

“That thing about getting sick from the cold is just a superstition,” he mumbles as he slides into the passenger seat. “I can’t believe you still believe that.”

Shiro offers a blasé shrug. “My mom really hammered it home when I was a kid. I can’t help it. It’s engrained.”

They don’t speak much on the way to his apartment, aside from Keith offering directions in clipped sentences. It isn’t unintentionally awkward; it’s by design. Despite the unwelcome air that is surely radiating off of him in waves that would wreck a ship at sea, he still catches Shiro sending him furtive glances in his periphery.

“I want to apologize,” he says quickly as he swings a left. “Again.”

“I think I’ve heard that one before.”

Keith gestures to make a right turn; his attempt at talking effectively shut down, Shiro does so wordlessly. The street they turn onto is a main road, with cars backed up almost to the beginning of the previous intersection, and the light up ahead is stuck on red. He sighs mentally; they’ll be here a while. They sit in silence, Shiro’s fingers tapping idly on the steering wheel.

“…You might not believe me, but what you said back at the café really wasn’t true. I never thought of you as less than. If anything, it was the opposite. I thought you could do better.”

Keith swallows his pride and makes eye contact. Shiro doesn’t look like he’s lying. “…If that’s true, then what does your husband think about that?”

“He doesn’t know.” _Figures_. Not that he’d expected anything different. “If you’re talking about me in general, that’s something only he could tell you.” He purses his lips strangely when he says it. Just like in the diner, there is something he’s omitting.

Keith looks down at his feet, at his scratched-up old shoes—a pair that had used to belong to Shiro, before he’d grown out of them. He remembers what he’d told him when he handed them over. He’d kept them even though they didn’t fit, on the off chance one of his future children might like them some day. When he’d seen Keith's own pathetic excuse for a wardrobe back when he first arrived at the Garrison, he’d gifted them to the younger boy instead. And he’d grown since then, obviously, but not enough. Never enough to completely fill the shoes—just enough so that they wouldn’t slip off when he tried to run, although they still sometimes gave him blisters if he wore them too long.

“Hey,” he whispers, “why did you come back? Why were you at the office that day?”

Their eyes meet again, longer this time. “I’m on leave,” Shiro confesses. “Well, not exactly. Let’s call it a temporary transfer. As a higher-up involved in politics they ask you to take part in mandatory mental health sensitivity training. How times have changed, right? I was even a sponsor on that initiative. I figured now was as good a time as any.” He grins crookedly. “Now that I think about it, I guess that makes me an intern, basically.”

A vicious honk causes them both to jump in their seats, as a car passes by on the left.

“ _It’s green, asshole!_ ” the driver yells through his window as he bypasses them, cutting into the opposite lane; several others follow his lead.

“Shit,” they say at the same time. Shiro chuckles, and against his better judgment, Keith does too.

A few blocks ahead, he taps on the dashboard. “You can go ahead and let me off here.” He unbuckles his seatbelt, ignoring the other man’s protests as he unlocks the passenger side door manually. He steps out seconds after Shiro slams on the brakes, barely giving him time to pull over to the curb. “My place is a few doors down.”

“You couldn’t have said so earlier?” His irritation rings hollow.

“Sorry.” Just before he closes the door, he hesitates. He looks at Shiro across the seat divide, his mind racing. It isn’t unpleasant, exactly, but it’s disturbingly familiar. He can’t go down this road again. He can’t. It wouldn’t be fair to either of them, but especially to Keith. Still, he can’t help it. “Will I see you again?”

Shiro stares blankly at him, before the expression slowly morphs into a smile. “Yeah,” he says, “if you want.”

“Soon?”

“Anytime.”


	3. Old love

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to the few who have left comments; I really appreciate any feedback for how to improve. I hope you enjoy this chapter.

_Now_

* * *

It becomes something unspoken between them. They don’t talk to each other every day, but on average about once or twice a week over the next month.

It doesn’t quite feel like starting from square one, but it comes close. Keith tries to remind himself of one simple fact: that what they have now is delicate. Everything hangs in the balance, so he has to tread carefully. He feels with certainty that this is _it_ —this is the last chance they have to build back up to something approximating normalcy. He knows Shiro feels it too, but they don’t talk about it, which is all right by him.

Shiro says he's happy just to see him again, and Keith takes him at his word not because he necessarily believes it (though he doesn't _disbelieve_ it, either), but because he wants it to be true for the both of them.

Shiro teaches him to drive a car. A regular one, the kind Earth civilians drive. He seems to be surprised that Keith had never had an occasion to learn in the first place, but only for an instant, before it is replaced by calm understanding. To Keith's surprise and slight discomfort, he then appoints himself his impromptu driving instructor.

To Shiro's surprise (and instant regret), Keith drives like an irresponsible maniac, even by the standards of city folk. He chalks it up mostly to a lack of proper instruction and mandated recklessness from both their Garrison and paladin days. On his second attempt at playing teacher Shiro relocates them to a less-occupied area near the outskirts of the city, just on the border of what could be considered a populated area. He promptly rolls over a curb when he cuts the wheel right too soon, and Shiro mutters something reassuring under his breath about being overinsured. Keith laughs, delighted when the wheel plops back down into the street, shaking them in their seats.

“This is okay,” he comments, leaning over the steering wheel.

“And more dangerous than flying. I regret letting you get behind the wheel.”

“The danger is only based on average statistics for travel. I’d like to see you take a car to a battle in space.”

Finally the two of them acquiesce to the necessity of going to the desert, and to no one's surprise, Keith flourishes there. Where there aren't lines to stay between or turn signals to use or curbs to get in his way, he presses with full force on the gas pedal and flings himself headlong into the feeling of weightlessness that accompanies it. The ground beneath them is still tangible, but for now he can ignore it, kicking up dust into the air as he swings sharp turns to the sound of Shiro's hollering laughter.

When there isn't anything holding him back, he can do anything. Shiro has told him that his entire adolescent life. Most people would feel proud of such a designation, or at least relieved that they aren't by nature a failure. He is reminded, quite painfully, that nothing in society is by nature; it's all by design. People build boxes and put you in them, and when you get too big for the walls, they put you in a bigger one, and when you get too big for that, what are you supposed to do? Keith doesn't have anything approximating a decent answer.

"You're good at this," Shiro comments, putting on the radio. "I should have figured. You'll be driving in the streets in no time."

"In polite company? I doubt anyone will give me a license anytime soon."

"Not with that attitude. You just have to get used to the rules. Then it'll be easier than breathing. Trust me."

He wishes he could, but Shiro is treating him like a junior officer again, keeping him at arm's length. Even while they tentatively seek out each other's company, the gap between them yawns wider than ever. Instead of commenting on it, he decides to let it be. It's what he wanted, after all. It's what he needs. They continue on, Shiro's instruction and studious commentary filling the gaps between them more easily than he could have hoped. But beneath the formality, he recognizes the signs of trouble. He’s becoming comfortable again.

He’s out of his depth.

* * *

_Before_

* * *

Keith is woken up in the middle of the night by Shiro’s voice calling out behind him.

He groans, rubbing his eyes tiredly and swallowing despite his parched throat. He’s soaked in sweat that isn’t his own, and there is heat radiating off the man next to him in waves. It doesn’t help that Shiro is curled around him from the back, his Galra tech arm wrapped around his waist.

“Shiro?” he asks, his voice little more than a drowsy croak. A few seconds pass without an answer. Confused, he turns over, feeling the other man’s bicep tensing underneath his head as he does so. “You okay—?” He pauses mid-sentence when he realizes that Shiro is still asleep. His brow is furrowed; a sheen of sweat glistens on his forehead. He’s biting his lip so hard it has swollen red, if it hasn’t pierced skin already.

His chest aches with sympathy. It’s one of those nights, then. Nightmares happen. To the best of his knowledge they have been happening since they got here—more precisely, since Shiro had returned from his captivity by the empire. Once again, he feels guilt.

“It’s okay,” he whispers. He leans forward and pulls Shiro’s face into the hollow of his neck, wrapping his arms around the larger man. “I’m here. I’ve got you.” He repeats those three phrases over and over again, in the hopes that it or something, anything, gets through. He isn’t sure at what point Shiro wakes up, but he continues to repeat them until strong arms tighten around his waist and breath shudders against his skin.

“Hey,” he mutters, sounding exhausted. “Sorry.”

“Nothing to be sorry for.” He cards fingers through his hair.

“I was dreaming.”

“Want to talk about it?”

He shakes his head, pulling Keith closer. He presses lips against the pulse jumping on his throat and holds them there, drawing in a deep breath. There is no space between them. Shiro sighs, seeming content. Keith shifts against him, breath catching when he feels the other man hard against his leg. Face still buried in his neck, Shiro runs his fingertips up and down the column of his spine, and makes no effort to progress things any further. Keith continues to play mindlessly with his hair. He isn't particularly aroused at the moment, but he can be. This is something he can do for him, even if he feels helpless most of the time.

It takes all of his courage to summon up the will to say, “I’m ready if you are.”

Shiro’s hands still for an instant, then resume their slow repetitive journey along the length of his spine. A few moments later he rolls Keith over onto his back and kisses him.

He responds enthusiastically, satisfied with being successful in bringing him back down to something resembling calm. He presses a hand over his own chest and feels his heart beating wildly, his body becoming responsive.

“Hold on,” Shiro says just as they get the rest of their clothes off. “I just need to grab something.” He reaches into the bedside drawer and Keith raises an eyebrow at the sight of the bottle and condom that emerge. If the mood were different he might ask if he planned this, but in all honesty it just seems like an appropriately responsible course of action. Now, how long he’s had them and where they've been beforehand are two different questions, but he doesn’t really care to broach the subject.

"How do you want to do it?" Keith asks. "I'm okay with either."

"So am I," Shiro agrees. "What do you want? I don't want to pressure you, if it's..." He gestures vaguely at the air.

"It's not my first time," he nearly snaps, not angry, but primarily embarrassed. "I'll be on the bottom."

Shiro nods, clearly trying to hold back laughter. "Okay. If that's what you want."

Shiro proceeds to take care of him, and he finds that he isn't surprised at how attentive he is. He pumps two fingers in and out slowly, building his rhythm in tandem with the clenching of Keith’s abdomen. Keith reclines against the mattress and wraps his legs around Shiro's waist to pull him down; he settles the side of his head against his chest and closes his eyes, looking peaceful.

“Your heart’s beating so fast,” he murmurs, “You should hear it.”

“So is yours.” His voice hitches on the last syllable when Shiro pushes his fingers in just a bit deeper, and he coughs to hide his groan. He fails.

They kiss for a while longer and alternate between stroking each other off until Keith taps out, his stamina sorely lacking. "I'm ready if you are," he says again. Shiro nods and kisses him deeply. He sinks in slowly at first, until Keith digs his heels in and forces him to bottom out. Shiro looks down at him with concern, lust quashed but still present in his taut expression.

“Are you alright?”

He nods his assent. “Never better.” Keith grabs hold of the headboard when Shiro starts to thrust, smothers a grunt against his skin and behind playful bites to his earlobe. While he’s next to his ear, Keith says his name: he drives in deeply enough to make him go slack-jawed.

There is vulnerability in this, he realizes. It seems like a fact that should have been obvious to begin with. Yet here he is, mid-realization, mid- _coitus_ , no less, and he's getting cold feet.

“Keep talking,” Shiro says quietly, “please.”

"What should I talk about?"

"Anything," he says, "I just want to hear your voice."

Shiro has a habit of wanting to fill the silence. It clashes a bit with his generally subdued attitude, but somehow fits. Keith can’t help but understand where he's coming from. Their voices root both of them to the moment. He grunts Shiro's name interspersed with reciprocated praise, and curses until he can’t take it anymore and his voice runs out. He maintains eye contact right before Shiro comes, and he doesn’t let up until he feels him let go while inside. He strokes Keith once, then again, then a few more times until he reaches orgasm. They lie next to each other in the aftermath, a tangled mess in the sheets that lie crumpled and sweaty between them. A few minutes pass.

“I can’t lose you,” Shiro whispers.

When he looks over at him, his expression punches the air from his lungs. Shiro looks well and truly afraid, and it's now that Keith considers the true depths of what they’re doing. He could have died back then, back when he felt like he was about to suffocate inside his lion (malfunction, his ass), and that would have been the end: There is no way to calculate or even truly understand how close he had been to it, but it’s making Shiro sick with panic. Keith has always looked to him for confidence, and since he’d been gone he had no choice but to find his own source of it. Well, he knows how well that had gone in the end—he’d left the Garrison, and although it hadn’t been for no reason, he hadn’t been able to find the strength to stay. Seeing Shiro fall apart on his behalf, though—it helps put things into perspective, and it isn't one that Keith wants to see from.

For the first time since arriving at the Castle of Lions, he is truly afraid. With fear comes uncertainty, a monster in the dark, poised and ready to rip out his throat. He had almost died, and from something so simple, so stupid. He hadn’t known it was possible to feel this fragile.

He doesn’t want to die. His eyes burn. He can’t stop the shaking; it sets his teeth to chatter.

“Keith?”

He has to be the one to hold himself together this time. It isn’t his turn to break. He has to be strong, to be able to function no matter what. He has to be a machine.

“I’m sorry; I didn’t mean to upset you.” Shiro places both palms firmly on his cheeks, forcing their eyes to meet. His eyes are watery, about to overflow. “Hey, look at me—it’s going to be okay, you know? We’re both here.”

He lets Shiro pull him into his arms, place kisses on his face, brush tears from his eyes like a lover. That’s what they are, now. It’s what he wanted, but it terrifies him to be this exposed.

Still, he wouldn’t trade it for the world.

* * *

_Now_

* * *

“I’d like to ask you a loaded question, if that’s okay.”

“Go for it.”

“You’ve mentioned before that you feel you lack a sense of purpose, but from what you’ve told me that doesn’t appear to be true.”

He picks at the hem of his jeans. “What do you mean?”

“Well, for starters, you went off on your own for a while during the war. From what you describe that had a positive emotional impact on you, didn’t it? It’s understandable that you’d be upset if your relationship ended so abruptly, and on terms that were less than positive, but there’s a missing piece that I’m not getting. Would you care to elaborate?”

Keith bites the inside of his cheek. “I guess…I sort of thought…once everything is over, we’ll go back to the way we were, y’know? I figured things would sort themselves out, or we could talk and I’d be able to—I don’t know, convince him?” He laughs somberly. “It sounds pathetic, I know.”

“It doesn’t sound pathetic. It sounds like you had evidence that might have been the case at the time.” Dr. Rose uncrosses her legs and leans forward. “But I’d like to propose an exercise. Can you think of any reasons why he may have acted the way he did, besides the fact that you did something wrong?”

"...No, not really."

* * *

_Before_

* * *

After the first night they have sex, Shiro doesn’t look at him in quite the same way anymore. It’s difficult to pinpoint, but he seems more tired, less energetic in the wake of Keith's almost-breakdown. Whether that’s due to the event itself or the near-death experience that preceded it, he cannot say. There probably isn’t a definitive answer, because neither of them are willing to confront the truth behind their emotions. There simply isn't enough time in the day after training and planning and fighting, trying to stave off the Galra fleets for just one more day, desperately searching for victory in a place that's known little else but defeat.

It’s just another shovelful of dirt added to the pile, pressing down on them both.

Though he is loath to admit it, he is still afraid. If anything Shiro's reaction had reinforced this fear, rather than made it more bearable. He feels exposed. His mortality and that of the others had been hammered home thoroughly by the incident, however minor it may have been. One mistake during battle can cause death. This is a fact he had known well before, but it’s one thing to read case studies in a cramped bunk and another to be staring down death in the cold vacuum of space. He feels like a child again.

To compensate, he operates under the assumption that he is invincible. As if in retaliation, Shiro begins to act as though he is made of glass. He never says anything, but the pointed looks he gets when he goes out on missions speak volumes, and the harsh touches and burning nights that follow confirm that suspicion.

They don’t talk about it.

* * *

_Now_

* * *

One morning, Shiro breaks the script.

"Do you want to go out somewhere tonight?" he asks over coffee. Keith suspects he's making a point not to audibly notice that he looks like death; he'd had a bad night. Sleep had not been kind, even when it was attainable. He's been dreaming in memories, lately. Still, Keith agrees. He doesn't even think much of it: what else would he do with his time? He could try to write, or go to the park, or do anything that his therapist recommends, but he could easily do all those things with Shiro by his side. 

So he says yes.

That night they go out to a bar, one they haven't frequented before. It's not a hole in the wall, but a leak in the ceiling, conspicuous for its inconvenient placement on the wrong side of town and poor structural integrity, but it's got personality, Shiro assures him, and the reviews online made it sound habitable at least for short periods of time. They talk for a few minutes, trading conversation easily back and forth at first. Positive memories come to the forefront with much more ease than he’d expected, and he soon finds the events of the day melting away, Dr. Rose’s words of encouragement vanishing into the ether along with them.

Then Shiro’s phone buzzes, and a message briefly lights up the screen. He swipes the phone off the table, almost too fast for him to see—but he still does, noting the familiar name, and his stomach clenches.

“Matt, huh?” He says, taking in another mouthful of his Irish coffee before placing the drink back on its coaster. “You guys still talk?”

“We do. I talk to all of them, now and then.” He’s still looking at the screen. He puts it down with a surprised expression, as if realizing he’s just committed a serious social faux pas. “Sorry, that was rude. I don’t have to answer it.”

Shiro seems to be forgetting that he’s here with Keith, who wouldn’t take offense to anything he did no matter how much secondhand humiliation he imposed on him. Even if he decided to stand up on the table and start dancing, he likely wouldn’t do more than nod and smile along. “No problem. Go ahead. We’ve known each other long enough that I won’t get mad if you ignore me to answer a text,” he scoffs.

“If you say so.”

Keith watches him answer, idly twisting fingers between the handle of his mug. He tries to take another sip, but he’s been taking large gulps this whole time, and now he’s hitting the whiskey at the bottom. He downs the rest too quickly, leaving a low burn in his throat.

Once he’s finished Shiro puts the phone facedown on the table and resumes sipping on his drink. “Sorry about that.”

“No worries. Do you mind if I ask what he’s up to? I haven’t talked to Matt in a while.” They had never been particularly close to begin with, but the need to quench his curiosity outweighs the desire to avoid appearing desperate.

Shiro looks unsure. This makes him uneasy. “He was just inviting me out for dinner and drinks. But I figured I was already here with you, so…”

“Yeah, right. Just the two of you, or…?” _Will the others be there, too?_ He figures the silence is revealing.

“Do you want to go see them?”

The forwardness takes him by surprise. He doesn’t expect it, given the circumstances. Keith brings his drink forward, and then pushes it back. He feels like a hypocrite. _People change when you aren’t looking at them_. This is a new version of Shiro, an older version that had approached him and practically begged him to lend an ear. Ironic that he’d be the one to remind himself of that fact. “Yeah, of course I do. I talked to Pidge not that long ago and said I’d be in touch, but I still haven’t found the right time, I guess. She’s been texting me almost every day.”

“Do you answer?”

Keith shrugs. “Sometimes. Sometimes it takes a bit longer.”

“You shouldn’t leave her hanging. It’s not fair.”

“You’re one to talk.” The side-eye he gets is intense, but not angry. “I’m sorry.”

“No, I am. You’re right.” He checks his phone one more time. “Look…the others will be there, too. It’s rare that we all get free time off like this together, but I wasn’t sure if I should put that kind of pressure on you right now. I know you’re…”

“You know I’m what?”

Shiro stops suddenly, hands clenched around his glass. His mouth hangs open as if unsure whether he wants the words to come out. “I know you’re…going through some stuff right now. I know things are still weird. I get that. I feel the same.”

Keith nods and repositions himself in his seat. He could snap back with a sharp retort, with something that will numb the pain and put up walls, but right now he’s tired. And he knows that Shiro is being earnest, even if he's admitted to himself that he'd never known him as well as he thought he had. He appreciates the concern, but it’s buried underneath the offense at being handled with kid gloves. “I know you do, but I don’t want you to lie because you think it’ll make me feel better. It makes it seem like I’m—unstable, or something.”

Shiro flinches at the accusation, looking immediately remorseful. “I know. God, I’m sorry, Keith.”

The reaction takes him aback. “It’s fine. Don’t worry about it.”

“No, it’s not.”

They sit in silence while Shiro drains the rest of his glass. “It isn’t fine, Keith. And I don’t want you to pretend like it is just to make me feel less guilty. I know what I did. And I’m going to make it up to you.”

It hurts more that Keith doesn’t believe him when he says it than it does to realize what Shiro thinks he has to make up _for_. “You can’t,” he says softly, looking down into the dirty bottom of his glass mug. “That isn’t how this works. I’ve accepted that. Why can’t you?”

Shiro is biting his tongue. There’s something choking him. Keith can relate.

“I’ll tell Matt we can take a rain check on the reunion, unless you really want to go,” he finally says.

Keith nods. “Yeah, that’s probably for the best right now.”

“I’ll drive you home.”

“Aren’t you a lightweight?” He gestures at the half-empty glass being white-knuckled in Shiro’s hand.

He smiles, but there’s not a trace of humor to be found in the familiar expression. “Not anymore.”

* * *

“You’ve talked a lot about Shiro throughout the time we’ve spent together.”

“Yeah, I guess I have. We’ve known each other for a long time. We’ve been through a lot as a team.” He scoffs at Dr. Rose’s knowing smile. “Don’t give me that look. You know what I mean.”

“I’m not sure I do. You want to fill me in?”

Part of this exercise is to get him to say things out loud. It’s an exercise in futility, he thinks—why bother when he’s never going to say them to anyone else? She tells him that it helps to focus his energy on working through his emotions instead of running circles around his own head, but to him it feels more like he’s losing something. He tells her so.

“Like what? What are you losing?”

“Time. And potential.”

“Potential. Your own potential?”

“It’s like—maybe not potential. That’s too—metaphorical? More like possibility, though I guess that’s not really any less metaphorical. When I’m here, it’s like I’m admitting that things can never go back to the way they were. Like I’m taking a step backward. If I say it here, it becomes part of _this_.” He gestures around the room, arms splayed wide. “It’s not mine anymore. It’s not ours. For so long, I’ve wanted things to go back to normal. I kept holding out hope that would happen, even when it was obvious that wasn’t what he wanted.” A tiny, annoying voice in his head mutters _sunk cost fallacy_. He does his best to ignore it, and fails. “If I admit it, I lose.”

“Would you still like that, if they did? Go back to normal, I mean; whatever normal means to you.”

“I don’t know.”

“…What would you do right now if Shiro showed up at your place and asked you to—to go get dinner as a date, or something similar?”

“…I would say yes,” he admits with some trepidation.

“And why is that? You told me what happened nearly broke you. That’s the way you described it, if I remember correctly.”

She does remember correctly. And he’d said it because it was true. He can’t go back to the way things were before even if he wanted to. But as much as he tries to extricate himself from the piles of rubble that are what remains of his previous life, he knows without doubt that he has never wanted anything more. He would say yes, if not in a heartbeat, then in a breath. And why?

“Because I love him.”

* * *

_Before_

* * *

“Your hair’s getting long,” Shiro whispers, a large hand carding fingers across his scalp. They’re standing alone in the locker room, towels wrapped around their waists after exiting the showers, and he leans heavily into the touch.

“Are you going to cut it for me?” he asks when Shiro removes his hand, reaching up to dry it with a towel.

“If you want. I'll probably do a bad job, though.”

"It can't be any worse than what they did to me at the home. It was nothing but buzz cuts, until I threatened them with the scissors." Keith ruffles his hair for a good few seconds before casting the towel aside, slipping back into his shorts. “Anyway, that’d be nice, if you did. I'd appreciate it.” He looks back at Shiro and catches him staring. He quickly looks away, cheeks flushed.

Keith smiles. Sometimes he feels like the older one, but he has a sneaking suspicion that it’s only because Shiro is afraid of breaking him. It is, in his personal opinion, ridiculous. He won’t break. He tells him so.

“I don’t think you will.”

He scoffs, disbelieving and half-jokingly insulted. “Really? Is that why you always play with my hair after we have sex?”

“You don’t like—wait, you _remember_ that?”

“Of course I do,” he says, softening his voice.

The silence is telling, comforting even, as they trade knowing grins. “And here I was, thinking you’ve been asleep the whole time. You could be a spy.”

“Maybe even a serial seducer,” Keith plays along, turning back to his things. “Yeah, that suits me.”

He stiffens in surprise and then anticipation when Shiro slides up behind him, strong arms pulling him into a bare chest. “Why not?” he asks, kissing the juncture between his neck and shoulder. “It works on me, doesn’t it?”

“A locker room?” he gasps in mock offense. Keith presses him back against the lockers, cold metal raising gooseflesh on his skin. Shiro kisses the arch of his throat and dips fingers beneath his waistband; Keith pulls him forward by his hips, actions contradicting words. “Not very romantic,” he mumbles against the other man's mouth.

“Sorry.” Shiro pulls away suddenly, leaving him dumbstruck.

“Uh—I was joking. You know that, right? I was into it.”

“…Really?”

He rolls his eyes. “Come here. Let’s make this better.”

They head back to the showers, an idea already preformed in Keith's mind. Shiro watches him turn on each of the showers in turn, steam quickly filling the room as the water heats up. Sparing a brief thought for the possibility of one of the others walking in on them, he stops in the middle of the room and examines his handiwork, soaked shorts now hanging low on his hips. “That should do it.”

His stomach coils with excitement. Shiro is staring at him like he hung the stars in the sky, which he isn’t quite sure how to process—on the one hand he’s flattered, but on the other he would like to believe he’s had ideas before that were better than some of his campiest sexual fantasies.

Before he can say anything about it, they resume where they’d left off outside. Shiro licks his lips, breathes him in, and leads him over to the ledge jutting out from the wall beneath the showerheads. He sits down and pulls Keith into his lap, the latter squeezing his legs instinctively around the other man's hips. Shiro groans and thrusts against his lower stomach, and he leans back to let the hot water run through his hair.

Keith rather enjoys the combination of water streaming across his head and back as Shiro kisses his chest; he tugs at his shorts. “Take it off.” He obeys, watching as Keith does the same. He isn’t intimidated, but he feels slightly nervous when he settles back into his lap. Shiro runs his hands up and down his sides, fingers tracing the grooves in his ribs. Pulling back, he stares up at him with a glassy expression.

“Can I touch you?”

He always makes a point of asking. Keith never says no, but it’s a nice gesture regardless. “Yeah,” he agrees, “whatever you want.”

Shiro strokes him while Keith refocuses his attention on his neck, biting his earlobe gently. Returning to his face, he presses a kiss to his cheek before panting into his mouth, hips thrusting desperately into Shiro's tightening grip.

Shiro curses and removes his hand, then pulls him back by the hair—gently, just so they’re face-to-face.

“Your turn,” he says. “Go ahead.”

“What do you mean?”

“Touch yourself.”

The tone of voice alone is nearly enough to make Keith groan out loud. He bites his lip and does as he asks, taking himself in hand. Shiro watches him with wide eyes and bated breath as he starts to stroke himself off. In response, he continues to stroke his sides and kisses his chest, teeth barely grazing his nipple.

“Keep going,” he encourages him. “You’re almost there.”

He glances down at their laps and sees Shiro doing the same, while his other hand continues to caress Keith's side.

A few moments pass, hot water still falling around them while they recline on the ledge, wrapped in one another, never quite reaching that point. Keith is about to reach his peak many times, but each time he starts to shake and his breathing becomes more haggard, Shiro stops him and swallows his breath, to the point where it becomes painful.

It’s many things. Erotic, yes, definitely risky due to the chance of discovery—but more than that, it feels intimate, more so than anything they have done before. Tears sting the edges of his eyes. He doesn’t know why.

“Get up.”

Keith is eager to comply, and they both manhandle each other into position; he bends over the ledge, letting Shiro lean over him. He kisses the nape of his neck and strokes him, while the water creates warm rivulets running down his back. Overstimulation gets the better of him, and he cries out when he comes. Shiro stutters to a halt above him, and he turns his head to the side just in time to catch the tail end of his orgasm, semen washing quickly off of his back with the hot water. He doesn’t know how beautiful he is.

Shiro meets his eyes once he comes down. “You should see yourself,” he observes. “You have no idea how you look.”

He knows the true answer is not good enough, but he doesn’t want to taint this moment, so he stays quiet.

* * *

_Now_

* * *

Keith stares at the glass of water on the table and watches the condensation run down the side. It’s sweltering outside today, as is expected for this time of year. The other day must have been a fluke, and he wouldn’t have been complaining at the time if it hadn’t meant getting soaking wet outside. That last part he doesn’t mind for obvious reasons, as it allowed him to run into Shiro again, though whether this is a good thing or not depends on who you ask.

The cup of coffee sitting next to the glass is lukewarm: about the same temperature as the air outside give or take a few degrees. It should be wholly unappealing in this weather. His hand twitches, throat parched. His phone rings, and he answers on the second tone. It feels like an eternity before he hears the other man’s voice.

“Do you want to come over?”

_Decide_ , he tells himself.

He leaves the water sitting on the table.

When Shiro answers the door to let him in, he’s surprised to see an orange cat poking its head around the corner of the hallway in the background.

“I didn’t know you liked cats that much,” he notes, stepping inside. He sets his phone on the nearby table and goes to say hello; the orange feline eyes him, looking uncertain.

Shiro raises his eyebrows, looking amused. “How much do you think I like them?”

“Enough to cart them around space, clearly. You do remember what your job is, right? Don’t tell me you’ve had this guy for that long.”

He rubs the back of his head, looking sheepish. “You’ve got a point. Hmm…I don’t, not really. I mean—not cats specifically. I just felt a little lonely, I guess. Pet policy is a bit more lax for someone like me, especially now that we’re not in any immediate danger. And the woman I adopted from assured me he’s good with changing environments. He’s an older guy.”

“That’s good.” The cat finally allows him to touch its head, and Keith finds himself smiling. He is suddenly overcome with longing—he misses Kosmo, as silly as it feels for him to admit it even in the privacy of his thoughts. He hadn’t thought he has any room left for longing left in him. “What’s its name?”

“Ito.”

“Ito,” he repeats. “I don’t know what that means.”

“It’s short for Dorito.”

He laughs and sits down on the couch; the cat follows him, looking for more of the attention this visitor has decided to pay. “I thought it would be something more…meaningful."

“He doesn’t respond to it anyway. He must have had a name before, I think, but the rescue people didn’t know what it was. So I guess it doesn’t make much of a difference.”

“Hmm. I wonder if Kosmo likes his name.”

He goes quiet; Keith senses the acute loss of casual conversation. Shiro comes over and sits beside him. “You miss him, don’t you?”

“He’s with Krolia. He's doing fine. I'm not worried.”

“…When was the last time you talked to her?”

He shrugs. “A few weeks ago I sent her a message. We’re not much for chatting. She doesn’t know I’m back, as far as I can tell—no one’s told her. At least I hope so.”

“I get it. Take your time.”

It was a mistake to abandon his screen. He needs to do something with his hands. He settles for stroking Ito’s fur. “What about you? Does your family know you’re back?”

Shiro smiles, his lips pulled taut at the corners. “I could probably fill a few books with the amount of things my family doesn’t know about my life.”

“Please, spare me the details,” Keith says sarcastically. He tries to resist the urge to probe a bit deeper, but ultimately follows up with a question, “Are you okay with that?”

“I could ask you the same thing.”

“Fair enough.”

They pet Ito together for a while before Shiro clears his throat. “You want to go get some food? There's a relatively decent Indian place just down the street.”

His appetite isn’t much these days, but at the mention of food he’s surprised to hear the low growl that emanates from deep in his stomach. “Yeah, actually. Relatively decent food sounds good.”

* * *

He wakes up spitting and gasping for air.

First Keith doesn’t move. The dark crowds around him, the ceiling bearing down on him from miles above. Then he takes stock of his surroundings; there’s some confusion, followed quickly by recognition. He recognizes the drawn blank curtains and sees the window that hangs slightly ajar behind them, letting the warm air flow in. He nearly panics before reasoning that he must have fallen asleep before closing it, and that he’s on the fifth floor. A voice in his head reminds him that being high up doesn’t preclude him from being in danger anymore.

The worst things that ever happened to him, after all, happened when he was impossibly high.

Just to be safe he walks through the whole apartment on shaking legs, though he won’t admit it to himself or anyone else. He checks the locks on the front door once, twice, then a third time, then the deadbolt and latches on the living room windows before circling back to his room. He closes the window in there as well, shutting the air out. The sky, when he catches a glance between the curtains, is still dark.

The clock on his phone says it’s four in the morning. He’d nearly slept through the whole night, an achievement he feels ashamed to admit he is proud of. His mouth and throat are parched, begging for water. He fills a glass in the bathroom sink and stares at his reflection—a pale, sweaty figure stares back at him, blotched with color on his cheeks and chest, remnants from his attempt at sleep. He flickers between the present and his mind’s eye, trying to recall what he’d been dreaming about. He knows full well what it is; his neck and throat aches, a phantom pain. Trying to force his way any deeper agitates him.

It doesn’t matter what Keith wants. He can’t stop trying to bring it back. The more he tries, the more he wants to go back to that place, as if his mind is punishing him for forgetting. But he hasn’t forgotten, not any of it.

“I can’t keep doing this,” he says out loud.

When his phone starts to ring back in the bedroom, he drops the glass into the sink; a sickening crack splits the silence, and for a few seconds he stands prone, unable to move, hearing the nothing around him as if he’s submerged underwater.

His heart is beating like a jackhammer. He stumbles back to his room once he can move again, but he’s slow, fighting his way through the river of molasses that’s coiled around his ankles. He doesn’t bother to check the number—he doesn’t think he could read it, even if he tried.

“H-hello,” he gets out, just above a whisper. “This is Keith.”

“Keith,” Shiro says, sounding surprised, “I...I didn’t expect you to answer.”

He freezes while standing in the middle of his room, and tries to process the situation with some degree of attentiveness. Shiro is calling him in the middle of the night. He doesn’t quite know what to make of that. “Shiro.”

“Yeah, it’s me. Sorry for bothering you. I just thought…”

All Keith can offer is the mindless echo, “You thought…?”

“…I was having some trouble sleeping, if you want to know the truth.”

“So was I.”

When Shiro laughs, he knows it’s not directed at him. Rather, it’s at the absurdity of it all, the _sameness_ , and he can’t help but to laugh along. “Yeah, I kind of thought that might be the case.”

“Why?”

“…I’ve been worried about you, you know. Don't tell me you haven't noticed.”

“...Has Pidge said anything?”

“Nothing specific, though I’d be lying if I said I didn’t ask. The others have your back. You were always more one of them than I was. That’s…a good thing.”

“That’s not even close to true. You stayed behind.”

“And you came back. And me—well, you don’t need me to tell you.”

It’s true. The memory is etched deeply—not as vivid as others, but still poignant. It still stings to think about. He senses that Shiro feels the same awkwardness. It could be because he’s exhausted physically and mentally despite the sleep, but regardless he isn’t watching his tongue as strictly as he usually does.

“You didn’t leave,” Keith says quietly, “but you threw me away.”

“I know. I should never have done that to you.”

“Then why did you?”

Shiro is quiet for a long time, to the point where Keith wonders if he’s either hung up or fallen back asleep; at least that would make one of them. He already knows he won't be sleeping anymore tonight. “I don’t know. But it wasn’t because of you. It was me.”

“I don’t know if I can believe that.”

“That’s fine. I don’t expect you to yet. Honestly, I’m still trying to figure things out. I’m sorry.”

“…I know. I’m sorry, too.”

“What are you sorry for?”

“You never left,” he says, his throat tight, “but I did. I ran away.”

“You had to, for your own sake—I was just being selfish. It wasn’t your fault, you know, none of it. You were too young to deal with all this. From the beginning, I wanted…I didn’t want this kind of life for you. Not for any of you. All I could see were my own mistakes, what I’d lost, and the thought of that happening to—I couldn’t…”

In that moment, a little bit of clarity manages to shine through. “…I think I understand, now. At least a little.”

“You do?”

“Well, as much as I can understand someone else’s martyr complex, but yeah, I guess.”

He chuckles. “You’ve got one too.”

“In our line of work, I think we all do.”

They go silent, both listening to the subtle sounds of life on the other’s side of the world.

“Why did you call me?” _Instead of someone else._

“To be honest, I don’t know. It was just…the first thing I thought to do. And I was worried about you, not just about myself. I feel very…not good.”

“Not good.”

“…Like, if I move I’ll collapse, except I know I won’t. I can’t afford to, you know? I’ll just keep moving because if I don’t people will notice. People expect me to be unflappable, which I guess I can’t really blame them for. It’s what I want them to think. I wanted to seem that way to everyone—even you. Especially you.”

It shouldn’t feel good to hear that, but it does. It makes the guilt spike.

“You know, I don’t think I’ve ever told anyone that. Not even the person I’m supposed to be the closest to.”

“What happened?”

“…I’m getting divorced.”

“…Oh.”

“Yeah.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be. It’s not your fault. None of it is. I’m just really good at making mistakes and messing up other peoples’ lives, apparently.”

“Don’t say that.”

“I only say it because it’s true. Besides, that’s not the point. You don’t know the other half of the story—and in any case, I don’t want to hear you try to defend me after everything.”

The accusation hits home. He wonders himself when his righteous anger had dissolved into sympathy, and why he simply can’t stay mad. At the moment it is too exhausting to even try. “Okay.”

“So, why were you awake to begin with, anyway? Or did I wake you up…?”

“No, you didn’t. My…my chest has been tight lately. Sometimes it feels like my heart is going to stop beating, or like it’s skipping them. When that happens while I’m awake I need to sit down, but I usually don’t. I go running, or I stand still like I’m paralyzed.” It comes pouring out, and he’s powerless to stop it. “When I’m asleep, I wake up. Sometimes it’s hard to move and breathe at first. I don’t know why.

“I just think, 'everyone must be sick of me.' They must think I’m disgusting, because I look in the mirror and I sometimes feel like I am. I’m a coward. I’m afraid all the time. It seems like…I’ll never get to where I need to be.”

“…Nightmares?”

“Yeah, I guess.”

“Just so you know, I’m not sick of you. And I never will be.”

“You can’t say things like that unless you mean them.”

“I know.”

“What does this mean, then?” he finally ventures to ask, both dreading and craving the answer.

“…I’m not sure yet.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As things have gotten longer, I might have to add an extra chapter to this story.


End file.
